Warning - Due to the complexity of this game there will be a lot of terminology used which you might not be familiar with. Once you play through some of the game you will begin to understand.
Difficulty: The difficulty of the game itself is above average. The difficulty of achieving platinum is slightly above the "above average" range pushing it into the hard category. However, this is not because it is actually difficult but more of an issue of time consumption, planning your playthroughs, and doing a good amount of reading about the mechanics of the game. In other words, you must actually do a fair amount of research in order to have the knowledge to execute trophy achievements.
Time: I clocked in 98 hours when I hit platinum. Due to the nature of random drops that you will need for weapon upgrades, I would put this platinum anywhere from 80-120 hours. If you get extremely lucky with ore drops you could end up in the lower bracket of 80 hours. Something interesting to note is that on my first playthrough I clocked in 45 hours and my fastest playthrough was 10 hours. So once you familiarize yourself with the game, it is fairly short, which makes things easier. If you know someone who already owns maxed weapons needed for trophies, you could ask them to drop them for you in a co-op game and as soon as you pick up the weapon you will acquire the trophy. This will save a huge amount of time but it is difficult to find someone who will do this as you need to be fairly close in character levels.
Execute: You will have to play through the entire game at MINIMUM three and a half times. If you are lucky, and I mean EXTREMELY lucky, you could technically only need to play it three and half times to acquire the platinum. Because this is very unlikely, you might have to play it five to six times, depending on the luck you have with crystal lizards dropping what you need.
Tips: I will leave some tips on what I believe is the fastest and most efficient way to platinum this game and some general tips about the game and how it works.
-First playthrough: Use the boss demon souls to acquire only magic spells. Complete ALL world and character tendency events in the first playthrough(its possible). This means obtaining all weapons and items related to world/character tendency. Acquire all rings for Rouges Trophy (yes it is possible).
-Second playthrough: Finish acquiring all the spells. Start using the boss souls you have left over to acquire miracle spells.
-Third playthrough: Finish collecting all miracles. Start working on weapons that need to be forged with boss demon souls. About half way through the fourth playthrough finish forging all unique weapons. After all gold trophies are complete you will need to collect the necessary ore for weapon upgrading.
-Kill every crystal lizard you see on every playthrough. You can attack them from a distance with a bow or magic spells. If you are using light armor you can just chase them down and attack them.
-Except for a very few instances, ALWAYS wear the theif's ring. It will aid you immensely as it allows you to get the drop on enemies and on some bosses.
-I personally think that, except for looking cool, heavy armor is useless especially in new game plus. Enemies, from what I have seen, can kill you just as fast regardless of what armor you are wearing. If you chose to sport light armor you can avoid attacks much easier because you are faster and more mobile.
-I think a "battle mage" (starting class mage) is the best class in the game and definitely the most versatile.
-Crescent weapons are some of the best if not THE best in the game, even better than +5 unique weapons.
-Changing World Tendency: There is a lot of talk about how to do this, and even a long seven step process that is in the official strategy guide, but it is not as difficult as it might sound. Here is how you attain pure white. ALWAYS play in soul form in that particular world. Once you beat a boss you will be forced to into human form. When this happens go to the nexus then to another world and suicide so you are back in soul form before returning. If this is done throughout the world you are working on and you kill the blackphantom(s) in that world you will ALWAYS have pure white by the time you defeat the main boss of that world. In the event that something weird happens and you still do not have pure white, help other players kill bosses to shift the world in white tendency. However, using my method I have yet to not acquire pure white in five playthroughs. To attain pure black perform these actions in this order: suicide, use Stone of Ephemeral Eyes to resurrect, return to nexus so change takes effect, go back and repeat.
-When doing world tendency events, always do pure white first then change it into pure black.
-Character tendency is attained by killing special blackphantoms when the world is in an extreme state or by killing NPCs in or outside of the nexus.
-Killing the red dragon is not required for achieving any trophy.
-Drops are more likely to happen in pure black world tendency so if you are farming ores I recommend changing the world to pure black.
This is a fairly complex game so if have any other specific questions feel free to contact me.
-HeaT
